


Human

by Citizen_Draiochta



Series: Mix-matched melodies [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Comfort, Comfort/Angst, Confessions, Discussion of Time Shenanigans, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, JUST HAVE ALL THE ANGST WHY DON'T YOU, More angst, Non-Binary Frisk, Nonbinary Character, POV Second Person, Queerplatonic Relationships, Reader Is Frisk, So much angst, Songfic, Suicide Attempt, don't let that throw you off though, have fun with it, i'm so sorry i didn't anticipate all the angst int his, oh dear lord the angst, take it, the only thing i really want to warn you about is the angst, why did i
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-10 14:01:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7847848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Citizen_Draiochta/pseuds/Citizen_Draiochta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based off of Christina Perri's "Human"</p><p>“frisk.”</p><p>“I can’t,” you replied. “I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t-”</p><p>I'm only human. I'm only human. Just a little human…</p><p>You took a deep, shaky breath, and opened your arms. You saw surprise, acceptance, and then a bittersweet smile flit across his face. He took a step forward, ready to accept your hug. You closed your eyes, unwilling to see the look on his face as you ducked beneath his arm as fast as you could and made a break for the cave. Twenty feet. Fifteen feet. Ten feet. Five feet. Four. Three. Two. One.</p><p>You made it. Five feet to the hole. Three steps. Time slowed around you and you counted each one, your breath puffing out when your feet hit the ground. Two steps. You heard a shout behind you, a muffled word, distorted in your ears. You ignored it. One.</p><p>=~=</p><p>I felt like writing a songfic...and then was hit with inspiration for a million more; those should be uploaded soon enough. All of them can be read as stand alones, but they are all set in the same universe, and will most likely follow some sort of chronological order. Enjoy!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Human

**Author's Note:**

> Hnggg...so I was being utterly destroyed by Frisk & Sans feels and this is the result...oh stars. Well, I do hope you enjoy! This series is going to be a collection of songfics that loosely follow a timeline. It's all in the same universe though.

This was it. You had done it.You had freed them all. The surface was once again inhabited by monsters and humans alike.  _ You had done it _ .

So why were you...unsatisfied?

Not with the result, no, no, anything but that. You were unsatisfied with yourself. How many resets had it taken? Ten? Twenty? Fifty? A hundred? Three hundred? Anything more than zero was unacceptable. You might have saved everyone, but it had cost too much. It had taken too much. And it had broken a small part of you each time.

The stars shone down on you from above, their lights twinkling warmly. You couldn’t bring yourself to look at them. You could hardly stand to rest your gaze upon your friends for even a few moments. How many times had they died? How many times had they fallen to a knife, to an unfeeling, vacant smile? How many times had their last moments been filled with pain, disappointment, anger, hurt, betrayal?  _ How many times?! _

You took a shuddering breath and slipped away into the forest, wandering aimlessly beneath the trees. As you moved farther and farther away, the sounds of your friends became distant, falling on deaf ears. At some point, you pulled out your phone and plugged in your headphones. They had been a gift from Alphys, as well as the seven-hundred-and-something songs on there. With another breath, you hit shuffle, and placed the speakers over your ears, drowning out the rest of the world. An echoing background with gentle piano opened the song. A woman’s voice began to sing into your ears, quiet, sad, and ringing with some emotion you couldn’t identify.

_ I can hold my breath. I can bite my tongue. I can stay awake for days, if that's what you want. Be your number one. _

Your breath caught and you slumped against a tree, sliding against the rough bark until you hit the ground with a soft  _ thump _ . Memories began to flit through your mind of hundreds of timelines, thousands of moments, millions of emotions. One human. Two people.

_ I can fake a smile. I can force a laugh. I can dance and play the part, if that's what you ask. Give you all I am. _

You remembered how you had first lashed out at a monster, scared, alone, and uncertain. To your horror, it had crumbled into dust before your eyes, blown away by an unknown wind that carried it through the ruins. A single speck had landed on your palm, and you felt tears pricking at the corners of your eyes. You remembered wishing with all your might that you could take it back and fix things, the tears falling faster and faster as you fell to your knees and sobbed. When you raised your head, there was a glowing box beside you.

**[RESET]**

You pressed it without hesitation. When you woke to find yourself on a bed of golden flowers again, you were not alone. There was a voice in your head, a voice that whispered to you.  _ Stay determined _ . You had gone through the ruins again, met Toriel again, confused as to why she didn’t remember you. You had seen the Froggit and offered her a compliment, then walked away with a smile. But when a Whimsium had approached you, the voice asked you to let it take control. Confused, you had stepped back mentally, and before you knew it, you were striking them down with your stick. Horrified, you had reached for the button and it had appeared. With desperation, you slammed your palm down on it.

You woke up.

_ I can do it. I can do it. I can do it. _

You swore never to let them take control again. They had laughed at you, and told you otherwise. There was the distinct sensation of a hand patting your head condescendingly and you had shuddered.  _ Stay determined _ , they whispered. It was mocking, laughing at you and your mistake. You pushed on. Vegetoid fell.

You woke up.

Again and again and again and again. But each time, you got farther and farther, until you slipped up and control was wrestled from you. Sometimes it cost you your life to keep it away from them. You would wake up somewhere along your journey, before your death.

You never made it to the end without the death of a monster. With each reset, you swore you could feel the dust accumulate on you, thickening, choking you as you tried to breathe, layer after layer after layer settling over you. All the while, that same laughter echoed through your head.

You began to slow in your journey, taking time to rest at places to keep your strength up in order to stay in control. You dreamed. You would wake in a cold sweat, heart pounding, and fists clenched as they laughed and laughed and laughed.

And eventually, your strength slipped. More and more fell. You were unable to take control back sometimes until just before the end, and you would reset. With each timeline, you lost a little bit of your strength. You could feel them taking over your body, and despite your best efforts, despite struggling with every ounce of strength, hope, and determination that you had, they would always win.

How many resets could you take?

_ But I'm only human, and I bleed when I fall down. I'm only human, and I crash and I break down. _

They had done it. They had finally taken your body. You were no longer there, able to only watch behind wide red eyes that stared, unseeing, clouded with bloodlust. You had cried within your own mind, indescribable pain filling your consciousness and sometimes you would collapse and feel yourself shatter but you had to get up, get up,  _ get up and stop them _ .

Nothing worked.

You saw Sans in the judgement hall, facing them down. He was grinning an empty smile, eyes void, and fists clenched in his pocket. 

“ **_do you think even the worst person can change, that everyone can be a good person...if they just try?_ ** ”

_ Your words in my head, knives in my heart; You build me up and then I fall apart. _

Chara. The demon that comes when you call their name. Chara, Chara, Chara. You laughed as you thought about them, shaky, heaving laughs that made your ribs ache and your eyes burn as you began to cry. Chara, who had sat back this very last time and watched as you befriended everyone, confused and angry at first when you smiled, genuinely smiled at them, and eventually grew to understand once again. You had given them your soul. In a way, you had saved them. They could feel what you felt, they could love and be happy and trust and hope and dream…

But even after you had done everything right, you had broken.

_ 'Cause I'm only human, yeah... _

The guilt of allowing those resets to even happen pressed on you. The guilt of allowing Chara to step forward weighed on your chest. The pain that you felt each time your friends were cut down strangled you until you couldn’t breathe, and your hands were over your knees and wrapped tightly around yourself as you sobbed and rocked on the forest ground. It had been too much. It had all been too much.

_ I can turn it on, be a good machine. I can hold the weight of worlds, if that's what you need. Be your everything _

You had done it. You had to. How could you possibly live, knowing your friends knew that they had died at your literal hands over and over again? Even if it had been someone else, all they would see would be you. You had done it. You had  _ let _ it happen. So you carried the knowledge, the burden, alone.

_ I can do it. I can do it. I'll get through it. _

You realized you were shaking. The bark of the tree scraped against your back as you gasped for air, the tears pouring out of you. You felt the weight of the entire world crashing down upon you. Too much. Too much.

_ But I'm only human, and I bleed when I fall down. I'm only human, and I crash and I break down. _

“heya kiddo.”

You couldn’t stop. You simply curled up there, sobbing and shuddering and screaming in your head at everything that had happened. You couldn’t take it. 

You heard a crunching noise beside you. Briefly, a small part of you wondered why you could hear him despite the music blasting into your ears. A hand was placed gently onto your shoulders. You flinched, unable to help it as you made to jerk away from him. 

“kid? you okay?”

Couldn't he see you? Couldn't he see that you weren't okay, you weren't even fine, you were nowhere near to any semblance of “normal”? You let out a strangled noise somewhere between a hiccup and a whimper. It was gross and distorted, and you hated yourself for even letting it slip out. You shouldn't be breaking down right now. You'd gotten your happy ending for everyone. 

_ Except me _ , you thought. You couldn't be happy when everything had gone right. Not when everything had gone so wrong before. 

“hey frisk. it’s gonna be alright.”

He pulled you to him, gently, but firmly prying your limbs apart and drawing you close to his chest. You sobbed. You sobbed and sniffled and cried and  _ broke _ as he held you and you didn't know what to do, what to say, what to feel. He rubbed your back awkwardly, wrapping you up in his jacket. You couldn’t stop the tears. They just kept coming and coming, flowing down your face freely and soaking the front of his shirt. You felt bad for causing him so much trouble, but couldn’t bring yourself to pull away. Your hands came up to grip his shirt like a lifeline as you continued to cry.

“i got you,” he murmured.

_ Your words in my head, knives in my heart; You build me up and then I fall apart. _

Couldn’t keep it together. Couldn’t keep the mask on. It took so much to break you but it finally happened and now you were lying in the middle of a forest with your skeleton friend, pouring your pain out onto his shirt as he comforted you in the only way he could. It didn’t help.

You were struck with a sudden overwhelming urge to confess. You wanted to spill your secrets to him, to share your pain so that you were no longer alone in your burden. You couldn’t handle this alone.

_ But he’ll hate you _ , a voice whispered, somewhere in your mind. You screamed at yourself internally. What did it matter if he hated you, when you had broken already? You needed to talk. It was the first time in years that you had needed to talk. 

“Sans,” you gasped out. “I - I -”

He waited for you to form the words, his arms tightening minutely around you. 

“yeah kiddo?”

“I’m  _ sorry _ ,” you whispered.

You repeated it like a mantra, growing louder and louder each time until you were sobbing it into his shirt, screaming it to the skies, begging for relief, for forgiveness, for something to stop the pain.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m SORRY I’M SORRY SANS!!”

“wha-?”

“I - I didn’t m-m-mean to d-do it the first time! I-it was an ac-c-cid-dent I s-swear!”

“kid...frisk.”

But you continued, ignoring his words. It began to tumble from you, words falling from your lips as fast as tears fell from your eyes.

“I-I h- _ hurt _ th-them a-a-and then I w-went ba-ack b-b-but by th-then i-i-it was t-too late and  _ th-they _ were th-ere in m-m-my h-head a-a-a-a-nd-d-d-”

You were shaking too hard to speak properly, sobs mingling with hiccups that broke your speech. You tried to take a deep breath and nearly choked.

“Th-they took o-o-over and I-I c-c-couldn’t s-stop them Sa-ns I  _ couldn’t stop them _ -”

_ 'Cause I'm only human, yeah _

By now, the song had stopped, moving on to some strange melody. The headphones slipped off of your ears and fell into his lap, cradled between his body and yours. The lyrics still echoed through your head, playing over and over and over again in a haunting melody, a song that was  _ too damn accurate _ after all you’d been through.

“frisk.”

“I-I t-tried to s-s-stop it f-from even s-starting so I w-w-went b-back and I p-p-put y-you all th-through i-i-it again and  _ ag-ain _ b-but they al-lways got  _ their way _ a-and no m-matter h-how s-soon it h-happened a-a-and I r-reset it d-d-d-didn’t-t-t-”

“ **frisk.** ”

You stopped at his tone of voice and flinched, making to draw back. Deep inside you, another memory stirred, one from the last timeline you had been in. The same voice, same tone, same echoing quality that, heh, had chilled you down to the bone as you had been forced aside and watched Chara attack, time and time again, your body falling apart over and over and over as they dragged you through each attack, getting closer and closer to the end with every death, their smile never wavering as he tossed you through the air against pillars and walls and floors and ceilings and hurled bones at you and blasted you away with blinding, agonizing beams of light and you could  _ still remember how they tore into you as he spoke over and over again reminding you of all that had followed from your one mistake and it was your fault all your fault  _ **_all your fault-_ **

He remembered. You realized now that he remembered every single time. Every reset, every time you had gone back, every time you had killed someone,  _ every time you had killed Papyrus _ , he remembered. He wouldn’t know about Chara. He would only see you, your body, your tiny, frail body that held such a strong soul that it had supported two people.

You let out a strangled gasp and scrambled away from him, your head hitting the tree with a thump as you slammed against it in your hurry. With unsteady, lurching movements, you pulled out your phone from your pocket and dropped it on the ground as you got to your feet and began to run. You caught the telltale blue glow that surrounded your phone from the corner of your eye and knew that he had caught it. You couldn’t bring yourself to care. You darted through the trees, not bothering to shove branches and vines out of your way, tripping over rocks and hidden tree stumps as you made your way through the forest. You didn’t know where you were going. You were following an unseen path, one that drew you away from him, away from them all. 

A familiar feeling grew inside you. Determination. Once, it would have filled you with a sense of relief, of knowing you had a way to possibly set things right. Now, it sickened you. Determination. What good had your determination been in the end? It didn’t erase your first action, and it didn’t erase all of Chara’s resulting ones. They would never be erased, so long as one person remembered. You were certain someone would remember.

Suddenly, you were there again. Countless timelines ago, years ago, it seemed, you had found yourself on this very path. You had been running. You kept going, your feet carrying you by instinct. You had only tread this path once before, but you knew it by heart. It led you up, up, up, away from it all, up until you could not climb anymore. After the climb...well. There was the fall.

You spotted the opening. The gaping hole in the side of the mountain, extremely shallow, only about ten feet deep. Inside, a hole sat in the floor, leading down, down down. Five feet in diameter, what felt like a billion feet in depth. You ran to it desperately, hands outstretched to reach for something, but what, you didn’t know. Your breathing was unsteady, labored as you stumbled to it, growing closer and closer and closer-

You saw blue. For an instant, you swore you were in the judgement hall again, blue tinting everything, coloring your soul, pulling you through the air and hurling you against anything solid and you backed up, eyes wide with panic. You tried to dodge to the side and slip around him, but you were blocked every single time. He had his hands out of his pockets, his jacket open and his sneakers on instead of his usual slippers. 

“frisk.”

“I can’t,” you replied. “I can’t I can’t I can’t  _ I can’t _ -”

_ I'm only human. I'm only human. Just a little human… _

You took a deep, shaky breath, and opened your arms. You saw surprise, acceptance, and then a bittersweet smile flit across his face. He took a step forward, ready to accept your hug. You closed your eyes, unwilling to see the look on his face as you ducked beneath his arm as fast as you could and made a break for the cave. Twenty feet. Fifteen feet. Ten feet. Five feet. Four. Three. Two. One.

You made it. Five feet to the hole. Three steps. Time slowed around you and you counted each one, your breath puffing out when your feet hit the ground. Two steps. You heard a shout behind you, a muffled word, distorted in your ears. You ignored it. One.

You were floating in mid air for hardly a split second, but it was an eternity to you as you gazed down at the blackness below, only a faint hint of color at the bottom. Your vision, blurred with tears, wasn’t able to make out any detail. You didn’t look back up as you began to fall. You shut your eyes tight and felt the air rush past you. It was laced with words, with whispers, your thoughts, and they filled your ears, indistinguishable from the noise in your head.

You didn’t know how long you had fallen for. Blackness overtook your world somewhere during the fall, a blissful reprieve that ceased your thinking. 

_ I can take so much until I've had enough. _

When you woke, you were surrounded in blue again, being slowly lifted into the air. You saw the cave ceiling above you, the ivy that climbed across it and claimed it, green leaves twisting over grey rock. You didn't turn your head as you were set down on the ground just inside the cave. A wall of blue bones appeared, separating you from the hole. A bitter smile twisted your mouth. You had fallen down the hole for the same reason all those timelines ago. The bones were simply another option. An easier one. 

“frisk.”

He was standing to your right, his voice soft in your ear. You heard him kneel and settle down beside you. He reached out a hand; you could see it from the corner of your vision, and you flinched. He drew back. 

“kiddo,” he said quietly. “why are you running?”

You didn't answer. He seemed to anticipate that, because then he began to speak, words coming from him haltingly. 

“are you...scared...of me?”

Silence. 

“i know what happened in all those - those timelines. and i...i know it wasn't you. i’m not going to...hurt you.”

You laughed in your mind, hysterical. Nothing made sense anymore. You just wanted it to end. You were tired of carrying this burden. You had done your part.

“kiddo, i don't know why you're running away from us. we’re...your friends.”

_ You don't understand _ , you thought. You couldn't handle it. You couldn't handle seeing your friends die time and time again, seeing them all turn to dust at your physical hands. You couldn't handle seeing yourself slowly taken over, losing yourself, being afraid of losing who you were while Chara controlled you. He wouldn't understand what it felt like to have yourself ripped away and cast aside. You felt violated by it. It was all catching up to you now. 

With a sudden movement, you threw yourself into the blue bones, thrashing around as you skidded through them. You felt your HP drop. With a strangled cry, you threw yourself at them again, falling through them and collapsing on the ground as your legs gave out. They vanished as you made to get up, and suddenly the skeleton was right in front of you, his hands gripping your arms as he dragged you away from the hole. You struggled, but were only able to twitch violently with your one HP. There was a wild panic in his eyes, some kind of pained understanding, and a cloud of hurt. His pupils had almost gone out. 

“frisk,” he muttered. “stop.” 

He pulled you out of the cave and back under the stars. They were cold and distant now, nearly vanishing into the black of the night. You could feel him trembling as he moved you. You were released onto a patch of cool, clean grass. You lay there, staring up at the sky, tears streaked across your face. A sudden tiredness swept over you and you closed your eyes, feeling yourself begin to shake again.

A hand touched you. You flinched away, but slowly relaxed when it hovered instead of drawing back, and you were pulled onto a lap, a skeletal hand carding through your hair. You were barely breathing, your chest nearly still and rising only a fraction with each breath. You wanted to sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep.

The two of you sat there in silence. There was only the shift of his hand in your hair and the wind that rustled your clothing. Your eyes were closed, but you felt wide awake, half curled in his lap. There was a strange numbness that had stolen over your mind, a fog that had settled and muffled your thoughts. Dimly, you were grateful for it. 

When you finally moved, hardly a twitch, you felt him breathe in sharply and his hand stilled. You cracked open your lips and felt, rather than heard, your voice rasp out.

“I’m sorry Sans,” it whispered, rough and tired.

“it’s okay kid,” he said back, equally quiet.

His voice rumbled through his chest and you felt it, laying there cuddled in his jacket. Your eyes were still closed.

“why did you run away from us?” he asked.

But it was no longer tinged with curiosity of any kind; no, it was filled with understanding, some form of resignation, and a desire to hear the reason from your own lips. He knew. He had figured it out, but he wanted you to say it.

_ 'Cause I'm only human, and I bleed when I fall down. I'm only human, and I crash and I break down. _

“Too much,” you replied, your voice hushed. “Too much.”

He tightened his grip on you and pulled you closer.

“yeah,” he said. “i know.”

And the numbness was slowly receding. Words began to formulate in your mind, sentences falling into place and it all came tumbling out of you.

“I couldn’t stop it,” you muttered. “I couldn’t - I couldn’t do anything. If I hadn’t...if I hadn’t screwed up the first time...it wouldn’t have happened. They took over.”

You didn’t dare open your eyes to look at him. They squeezed tightly shut as you continued.

“I didn’t mean to,” you said. “I was scared. I turned around and hurt them and then I went back to make it better. I cried. They were there, then, after that, but maybe they were always there and they needed a reason to come out. I started to lose - lose control. Lost myself. Sans, I was  _ scared _ -”

You cut yourself off despite the torrent of words still in your mind. With trembling hands, you gripped his shirt and buried your face in it. There was something akin to a sigh from him, then a shift.

“i was lying in bed one day, being my lazy self. papyrus came upstairs to call me down for breakfast. see, the two of us, we’d moved into snowdin maybe eleven years ago or somethin’. we moved there after we lost someone, but pap doesn’t remember. that someone took a lot outta me when they were gone. so i dragged myself out of bed - wasn’t really a good day for me. you know, bad days and all. and i took one step onto the stairs and suddenly, i was back in bed. i didn’t know i’d already gotten up; all i knew is that it felt pretty familiar, what i was about to do again.”

Your breath caught in your throat and you had to force yourself to breathe again, hardly taking in air as you listened to him. Where was he going?

“that time, i made it all the way down the stairs. then i was back in bed. it didn’t take me long to start piecing it all together. someone was messing with time. i’m sure you know i used to study time. i think i told you the last run around.”

_ That _ cut deep inside you. You felt yourself flinch and curl up a little more tightly. He seemed to realize the effect of his words, because there was a soft curse from him, and a hand drawing through your hair.

“sorry kiddo,” he said gently. “that was...insensitive.”

You let out a little breath.

“i knew what was happening. wasn’t till i managed to get out to the ruins that i heard about the newest thing in the underground. at first, i thought the little weed was screwing around again. it’d been years since he tried anything, but hey, knowing him, he could’ve done it. then tori told me about you, and i realized it was you who was messing around.”

He hesitated and you tensed. Well, you tensed more than you already were; at the moment, you were a spring coiled tightly, wound up and under pressure.

“i was angry at first,” he admitted. “i’ve been done with time shenanigans for a long while now. thought i was free of them forever. but then she asked me to protect you. of course i agreed; i couldn’t turn down someone like her. back then, she was one of the only things keeping me going.

‘s not your fault, of course. honestly kiddo, in some ways, i’m glad you reset. it meant you were trying at least. i don’t blame you for your first run. you were right - you  _ were _ scared. i can’t fault you for that. and then you panicked and you thought resetting was the only way and you kept fighting. i didn’t know that then.

thing is, for a guy like me who’s probably lived enough timelines for my entire lifespan, it gets tiring after a while. somehow, somewhere along the way, you start to wonder: is it really worth it if everything’s just going to end up at the beginning again? one set of resets was enough, and he did it for fun. losing someone to time was enough. a third thing? i was ready to give it all up.”

There were tears sliding down your cheeks, you realized. You hadn’t even noticed them begin to fall. No sobs arose though. It was a quiet kind of crying, one of understanding and mourning and loss and pain. It was subdued. It was my fault he felt this way, you thought. If you hadn’t reset, if you hadn’t kept at it -

If you had let them take over you sooner, it all could have ended that much quicker.

“stop,” he commanded. 

It was quiet, but it was enough to jar you from your thoughts.

“i know what you’re thinking,” he said. “and you’re going to stop. didn’t i say it wasn’t your fault? we do what we think is right in the moment. sometimes we regret our choices. but without them, we wouldn’t be here today, who we are, right? we wouldn’t be as strong as we are. we wouldn’t appreciate this  _ that _ much more. do what is right, not what is easy. it’s your responsibility. and you did the right thing, not giving into them. you kept that spirit, even when you almost lost it, and how do i know this?”

You took a shuddering breath and dared to open your eyes by a fraction. You were staring into two bright pinpricks of light.

“don’t think i don’t remember all the times you fought me,” he said quietly. “it was always you who tried to spare me. you think you lost yourself frisk? if you had, you wouldn’t have forced them to throw away the knife. you wouldn’t have kept fighting until the end.”

His words rang throughout your head amongst the lyrics that still echoed, twining together. Broken, almost, but not quite. Until now. Were you broken? You felt it. You had jumped. You had given up, run away, fallen down.

Hadn’t you done that before? And you had still found yourself again, pieced yourself together this final run in the underground as you made friends, made a family.

But you had cracked at the surface, back where you started, the pressure of something kept so closely to yourself killing you slowly just as it had timelines ago when you had first climbed the mountain. When mom and dad had said those words to you, over and over again.

_ “What happens in this house stays in this house.” _

A secret for you to keep and only for you to know. Hadn’t that been Chara? Hadn’t Chara been something only you were meant to bear, only you were meant to know?

You had broken under both of them at the same place, at the same time, under the same moon, the same stars, the same sky. At night on Mount Ebbott under a full moon lighting up a sky full of distant stars. Once, you had put yourself together. Then, you had fallen apart.

Briefly, you wondered how many times you would do that.

_ Your words in my head, knives in my heart; You build me up and then I fall apart. _

“Sans,” you whispered again.

Suddenly, you couldn’t think of anything to say. Just his name, repeating over and over again in your mind, twisting alongside his words, the lyrics, the melody, growing louder and louder and louder-

“I’m only human, Sans,” you said. “I’m just a human.”

Human. The word had a million different meanings. It meant kind, hateful, brilliant, stupid, strong, weak, determined, hopeless, brave, cowardly, patient, short-tempered, judgemental, charitable, honorable, underhanded...it meant mortal.

It meant fragile, perishable, breakable…

“human,” he repeated. “there’s a lotta different humans out there kiddo. not many of them can do what you can. i’d wager that none of them can. human. what does that mean to you?”

And all these words sprang to your mind, yet you had no answer for him.

“i wouldn’t say you’re ‘just a human’,” he said. “you were given that burden, whether it was forced upon you or taken willingly. all i know is that it wouldn’t have happened if you couldn’t handle it. you’ve got determination. i’m not talking about the feeling that lets you keep going. i’m talking about the kind that let you spend countless timelines fighting back against something you didn’t believe in, something you knew was doing wrong. i’m talking about the kind that let you save everyone, an entire race that you didn’t even know existed until you fell. i’m talking about the kind that let them latch onto you. but maybe they hitched a ride with you for a reason. maybe it wasn’t to destroy everyone.”

“Maybe it was to save them too,” you murmured. “Where’s my determination now, Sans?”

“they’re not there anymore with you,” he responded. “you saved them too, didn’t you? but they didn’t take your determination away from you. it’s still there. you must be hanging onto something if you’re still sitting here with me, right?”

You realized that was true. Why  _ were _ you still there? Why  _ weren’t _ you running back to the cave?

“Maybe I’m not determined enough to die,” you said.

There was an edge of bitterness to your voice. If he noticed it, he didn’t react.

“Maybe I lost all of my determination and the best I can do is just lay here.”

“if i told you you had to help toriel talk to asgore again, would you do it?”

“Yes.”

The answer was automatic. Of course you would.

“that determination isn’t going to do you any good if you don’t use it,” he told you gently. “you’re the kind of person who  _ can’t _ stop, no matter what. if you stop, then what are you? you have to keep going. you have to push through. you have to find new things to do, new goals to reach, new people to help, new problems to solve. you just have to keep going. even when it looks like you can’t. but you don’t have to keep going alone.”

The tears were back.

“Sa-” you started, but you were cut off.

“y’know, i think the best goal for you right now is to live a long and happy life with us,” he said. “whad’ya say? are you determined enough to do that?”

And then he offered you his signature grin, a real one, not something he would plaster on to seem happy. It was an extension of a hand, an offering, a promise.

You felt a familiar rush building, seeping into your veins as you stared up at him.

**You are filled with DETERMINATION.**

_ 'Cause I'm only human, yeah. _

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed; if you did, leave a kudo or a comment! Any and all feedback is appreciated.
> 
> As always, you can find me on tumblr at http://mercy-or-genocide.tumblr.com for my Undertale blog where I post fanart, moodboards, headcanons, short little ficlets, and music. You can also find fic updates and posting schedule updates on there under the tag "modpost". My personal/main blog is http://rainy-days-daydream, so go check that out and talk to me! I love chatting with people even if we just have one conversation. My support blog is http://kindness-is-enough
> 
> Have a lovely day/night!


End file.
